The Roman aristocracy, so proud, so rich,
so powerful, was based on the glory of battle-fields. Every citizen was
trained to arms, and senators and statesmen commanded armies. The
whole fabric of the State was built up on war, and for many centuries it
was the leading occupation of the people. How insignificant was a poet,
or a painter, or a philosopher by the side of a warrior! Rome was a city
of generals, and they preoccupied the public mind.
[Sidenote: Value placed by the Romans on military art.]
To a Roman, military art was the highest of all. It was constantly being
improved, until it reached absolute perfection, with the old weapons
and implements of war. To its perfection the whole genius of the
people was consecrated; it was to them what the fine arts were to the
Greeks, what priestly domination was to the Middle Ages, and what
material inventions to abridge human labor are to us. The Romans
despised literature, art, philosophy, commerce, agriculture, and even
luxury, when they were making their grand conquests; they only
respected their fortunate generals. Hence there was no great
encouragement to genius or ambition in any other field; but in this field,
the horizon perpetually expanded. Every new conquest prepared the
way for successive conquests; ambition here was untrammeled, energy
was unbounded, visions of glory were most dazzling, warlike schemes
were most fertile, until the whole world lay bleeding and prostrate.
[Sidenote: Lawfulness of war.]
Military genius, however, does not present man in the highest state of
wisdom or beauty. It is very attractive, but "there is a greater than the
warrior's excellence," at least to a contemplative or religious eye. When
men save nations, in fearful crises, by their military genius, as
Napoleon did France when surrounded with hostile armies, or Gustavus
Adolphus did Germany when it was struggling for religious rights, then
they render the greatest possible services, and receive no unmerited
honors. The heart of the world cherishes the fame of Miltiades, of
Charlemagne, of Henry IV., of Washington; for they were identified
with great causes. War is one of the occasional necessities of our world.
No nation can live, or is worthy to live, without military virtues. They
rescue nations on the verge of ruin, and establish great rights, without
which life is nothing. War, however much to be lamented as an evil, is
the last appeal and resource of nations, and settles what cannot be
settled without it; and it will probably continue so long as there are
blindness, ambition, and avarice among men. Nor, under certain
circumstances, of which nations can only be the proper judges, is it
inconsistent with the law of love. Hence, as it is a great necessity, it
will ever be valued as a great science. Civilization accepts it and claims
it. It calls into exercise great qualities, and these intoxicate the people,
who bow down to them as godlike.
[Sidenote: Those who are most successful in war.]
Still, military genius, however lauded and honored, is too often allied
with ambition and selfishness to secure the highest favor of
philosophers or Christians. It does not reveal the soul in its loftiest
aspirations. Men of a coarser type are often most successful,--men
insensible to pity and to reproach, whose greatest merit is in will, nerve,
energy, and power of making rapid combinations. We revere the
intellect of the Greeks more than that of the Romans, though they were
inferior to the latter in military success. We have more respect for those
qualities which add to the domain of truth than those which secure
power. A wise man elevates the Bacons, the Newtons, and the
Shakespeares above all the Marlboroughs and Wellingtons. Plato is
surrounded with a brighter halo than Themistocles, and Cicero than
Marius.
[Sidenote: The general evils of war.]
War as a trade is unscrupulous, hard, rapacious, destructive. It foments
all the evil passions; it is allied with all the vices; it is antagonistic to
human welfare. It glories merely in strength; it worships only success.
It raises wicked men to power; it prostrates and hides the good. It
extinguishes what is most lovely, and spurns what is most exalted. It
makes a pandemonium of earth, and drags to its triumphal car the
venerated relics of ages. It is an awful crime, making slaves of the
helpless, and spreading consternation, misery, and death wherever it
goes--marking its progress with a trail of blood, and filling the earth
with imprecations and curses. It is the greatest scourge which God uses
to chastise enervated nations, and cannot be contemplated with; any
satisfaction except as the wrath, which is made to praise the Sovereign
Ruler who employs what means He chooses to punish or exalt.
[Sidenote: Spirit of the Romans in their wars.]
Now the Romans, in
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